I ♥ Paris (2)...

Champs-Élysées, a name that few of us pronounced correctly, unless of course if you speak French :) It is pronounce as "shahn-zay-lee-ZAY".

Wikipedia has this to say about this famous 2 Km avenue in Paris:
"The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (French pronunciation: [avəny de ʃɑ̃zelize] ( listen)) is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets in the world, and with rents as high as €1.1 million (USD1.5 million) annually per 1,100 square feet (92.9 square metres) of space, it remains the most expensive strip of real estate in Europe.^[1][2] The name is French for Elysian Fields, the place of the blessed dead in Greek mythology. The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is known in France as La plus belle avenue du monde ("The most beautiful avenue in the world").^[3] The arrival of global chain stores in recent years has slightly changed its character, and in a first effort to stem these changes, the City of Paris (which has called this trend "banalisation") decided in 2007 to ban the Swedish clothing chain H&M from opening a store on the avenue.^[2] In 2008, however, American clothing chain Abercrombie & Fitch was given permission to open a store."



To get there we check out the Paris Tourisme map that greet us at the Metro entrance. You can see from the photo that Ming-N is actually snapping the map with her Canon G7 for future reference! I did the same :)

For instance, we are going to Champs-Élysées, the smaller map on the side show us that from Denfert Rochereau we can take the Metro to Chatelet, change to a N24 train which will take us to Champs-Élysées. All the train lines are colour coded for easy tracking.

And we are there! Picture above is the proof! Ha ha ha.. we are standing on Champs-Élysées with Arc de Triomphe behind.

This is the second time I came walking on this famous stretch of wide, wide pavement; to me, it is a bit over rated.. all the top brand name shops are here, but can you afford to buy their ultra mark-up goods?

France's most famous brand Louis Vuitton standing proud beside HSBC ;) I remember when I was here in 1994, LV was only a ground floor shop; look at it now!

Even the pizza parlour is super grand here, no; we did not eat here.. we had our lunch at the McCafé instead. hee hee... the place is really crowded, it must be the most affortable eatery in this super expensive stretch!

Strange but true! This hobo just lie on the most expensive pavement in the world with his dog and able to make a living! Cost me €2.00 to get this shot ;)


Apart from harmless hobo, watch out for Gypsy women while you are here. These irritating beggers will approach you and ask, "Speak English?" Best to just shake your head or shoos them off. I think they are more irritating than having an ulterior motive like the con man who put a "gold" ring on my wife's finger after he make sure she saw him pick it up on the pavement! So watch out!

A modern art gallery at the top end of Champs-Élysées and the antique gate.

You can hire one of this coins operated bicycle, but looking at the number of cars on the world most expensive road; I don't think so!

I think Champs-Élysées look so elegant because of the rows of clipped horse-chestnut trees! They even make the avenue look romantic!

So if you are in Paris, go walk down this most expensive strip of real estate in Europe and who know, you might be interested in an apartment like the photo below ;)



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I ♥ Paris (3)